Joining the Twitterverse

October 28, 2008

Interested in seeing how microblogging can work for you? The time was right at Brandon Hall Research, so I sent instructions out to my co-workers interested in using Twitter. Since we’re all analysts, I added #3. If you’re not an analyst, you might want to seek out people in a similar position as yours to see how they are using Twitter in their work.

  1. Join Twitter if you haven’t already. You can post, reply, and direct message directly on the Twitter site. I use TweetDeck to manage Twitter. It’s a download. I like it better than the main Twitter page. There are other Twitter apps. You can see what apps people are using by looking at their tweets (it will say ‘via twitterfeed’, ‘via twhirl’, ‘via web’, ‘via IM’, etc.). I user Twitterberry for mobile.
  2. Follow some people on Twitter. You can look through my follows/followers to see if you know anyone. I follow people in the learning industry mostly. Follow me!
  3. Go to this site and ask that you’re name be put on this directory . Follow some analysts to see how they’re using Twitter. (see note above non-analysts)
  4. If you want to relive your middle and high school years, join Qwitter so you can find out when someone stops following you. Below is an example of the email you’ll receive when someone quits you. I didn’t want Eric Miltsch at Auction Direct following me anyway. He must have decided I was more interested in talking about wikis than buying a car. I provide this example simply to let you know that there’s a lot of marketing/spammy followers you are likely to see following you. Tip: when someone follows me, I take a look at their last few pages of Tweets to see if their content is relevant to my work before following them. (Of course, if someone stops following that I like, I think I’ll feel like I’ve been broken up with.)  So far so good, so my twittiquette must be acceptable. )

Enjoy! See you in the Twitterverse.

UPDATE: Great post on Twitter apps from Jane Hart and the case against Twitter from D’arcy Norman

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  • http://daveswhiteboard.com/ Dave Ferguson

    In your microblog, I see the advice: once you publish (via blog, Twitter, whatever), consider it public. This is something easy for folks to forget. It’s one reason I tend to fictionalize current clients on my blog, so that any misrepresentation lies with me and not with them.

    Your advice about checking a potential follower’s recent posts is good — I get one off-the-wall request a month, maybe. I don’t mind meeting new people, but I do mind meeting multilevel marketers, folks who have me confused with a church pastor with the same name, and people with whom I seem to have nothing in common but genus and species.

  • http://daveswhiteboard.com Dave Ferguson

    In your microblog, I see the advice: once you publish (via blog, Twitter, whatever), consider it public. This is something easy for folks to forget. It’s one reason I tend to fictionalize current clients on my blog, so that any misrepresentation lies with me and not with them.

    Your advice about checking a potential follower’s recent posts is good — I get one off-the-wall request a month, maybe. I don’t mind meeting new people, but I do mind meeting multilevel marketers, folks who have me confused with a church pastor with the same name, and people with whom I seem to have nothing in common but genus and species.

  • http://www.sagecircle.wordpress.com/ Carter Lusher

    Hello Janet, Thanks for the link to the SageCircle Analyst Twitter Directory.

    We also have a second twitter directory for analyst rlations (AR) professionals. It can be found at

    http://sagecircle.wordpress.com/directories/ar-twitter-directory/

    Cheers, -carter j
    Carter Lusher, Strategist
    SageCircle
    Experts on the analyst ecosystem and analyst relations best practices

    Carter Lushers last blog post..People on the Move in Analyst Relations – Kent Cook to Microsoft

  • http://www.sagecircle.wordpress.com Carter Lusher

    Hello Janet, Thanks for the link to the SageCircle Analyst Twitter Directory.

    We also have a second twitter directory for analyst rlations (AR) professionals. It can be found at

    http://sagecircle.wordpress.com/directories/ar-twitter-directory/

    Cheers, -carter j
    Carter Lusher, Strategist
    SageCircle
    Experts on the analyst ecosystem and analyst relations best practices

    Carter Lushers last blog post..People on the Move in Analyst Relations – Kent Cook to Microsoft

  • http://aquaculturepda.edublogs.org/ Sue Waters

    I’d also recommend using Twitter Karma as I found Quitter listed quite a few people as not following me when I knew they were. Yet Twitter Karma can also have a bad hair day and also get it wrong.

    Sue Waterss last blog post..Interested In FREE Online PD This Friday?

  • http://aquaculturepda.edublogs.org/ Sue Waters

    I’d also recommend using Twitter Karma as I found Quitter listed quite a few people as not following me when I knew they were. Yet Twitter Karma can also have a bad hair day and also get it wrong.

    Sue Waterss last blog post..Interested In FREE Online PD This Friday?

  • http://www.brandon-hall.com/ Janet Clarey

    Hi Dave- I’ve been thinking a bit too about this whole ‘anything you publish is public.’ At the IiL08 conference, I used TwitterCamp to stream Tweets in a hallway on a big screen. At least one person tweeted that they have to “watch what I say because there’s a big screen in the hall.” There was a different level of public for this person. I started worrying about protected updates. That person wouldn’t want something on a screen. So if they chose to allow me to follow them, it’s unethical for me to show that. I didn’t have that problem because people had to follow IiL08 and they could choose to follow back but it really got me thinking about future events.

  • http://www.brandon-hall.com Janet Clarey

    Hi Dave- I’ve been thinking a bit too about this whole ‘anything you publish is public.’ At the IiL08 conference, I used TwitterCamp to stream Tweets in a hallway on a big screen. At least one person tweeted that they have to “watch what I say because there’s a big screen in the hall.” There was a different level of public for this person. I started worrying about protected updates. That person wouldn’t want something on a screen. So if they chose to allow me to follow them, it’s unethical for me to show that. I didn’t have that problem because people had to follow IiL08 and they could choose to follow back but it really got me thinking about future events.

  • http://www.brandon-hall.com/ Janet Clarey

    Thanks so. I’ll try Karma. Totally NSFW is this new Twitter service. Follow real-time swearing on Twitter. http://www.cursebird.com/

  • http://www.brandon-hall.com Janet Clarey

    Thanks so. I’ll try Karma. Totally NSFW is this new Twitter service. Follow real-time swearing on Twitter. http://www.cursebird.com/

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